H. P.

Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an
H. P. Lovecraft
American writer who achieved posthumous fame through his influential works
of horror fiction. He was virtually unknown and published only in pulp
magazines before he died in poverty, but he is now regarded as one of the most
significant 20th-century authors in his genre.

Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island, where he spent most of his
life. Among his most celebrated tales are "The Rats in the Walls", "The Call of
Cthulhu", At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time, all
canonical to the Cthulhu Mythos. Lovecraft was never able to support himself
from earnings as an author and editor. He saw commercial success increasingly
elude him in this latter period, partly because he lacked the confidence and drive
to promote himself. He subsisted in progressively strained circumstances in his
[1]
last years; an inheritance was completely spent by the time he died, at age 46.

Lovecraft in 1934
Born Howard Phillips Lovecraft
Contents August 20, 1890
Providence, Rhode
Biography Island, US
Early life (1890–1908)
Earliest recognition (1908–1914)
Died March 15, 1937
Rejuvenation and tragedy (1914–1921) (aged 46)
Marriage and New York Providence, Rhode
Financial difficulties Island, US
Brooklyn Resting Swan Point Cemetery,
Return to Providence place Providence, Rhode
Last years Island, US
Appreciation Pen name Lewis Theobald
Within genre Humphrey Littlewit
Literary Ward Phillips
Philosophical Edward Softly
Themes Occupation Short story writer, editor,
Forbidden knowledge novelist, poet
Non-human influences on humanity Period 1917–1937
Inherited guilt
Genre Dark fantasy, gothic
Fate
fiction, horror fiction,
Civilization under threat
science fiction, weird
Race, ethnicity, and class
fiction
Risks of a scientific era
Religion Literary Cosmicism
movement
Superstition
Notable "The Call of Cthulhu"
Influences on Lovecraft works
The Dream-Quest of
Influence on culture
Music
Unknown Kadath
Games At the Mountains of
Lovecraft as a character in fiction Madness
 Editions and collections of Lovecraft's work The Shadow over
Letters Innsmouth
Copyright
The Shadow Out of Time
World Fantasy Award and H. P. Lovecraft controversy
Spouse Sonia Greene (m. 1924)
Locations featured in Lovecraft stories
Bibliography
Signature
Documentary biographies and movies portrayals
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
External links

Biography

Early life (1890–1908)

Lovecraft was born in his family home on August 20, 1890, in Providence, Rhode Island. He
was the only child of Winfield Scott Lovecraft (1853–1898) and Sarah Susan (Susie) Phillips
Lovecraft (1857–1921).[2] Though his employment is hard to discern, Lovecraft's future wife,
Sonia Greene, stated that Winfield was employed by Gorham Manufacturing Company as a
traveling salesman.[3] Susie's family was of substantial means at the time of their marriage;
her father, Whipple Van Buren Phillips, being involved in many significant business
ventures.[4] In April 1893, after a psychotic episode in a Chicago hotel, Winfield was
committed to Butler Hospital in Providence. Though it is not clear who reported Winfield's
prior behavior to Butler, medical records indicate that he had been "doing and saying strange
things at times" for a year before his commitment.[5] Winfield spent five years in Butler
before dying in 1898. His death certificate listed the cause of death as general paresis, a term
synonymous with late-stage syphilis.[6] Susie never exhibited symptoms of the disease,
leading to questions regarding the intimacy of their relationship. In 1969 Sonia Greene Lovecraft c. nine years old
ventured that Susie was a "touch-me-not" wife and that Winfield, being a traveling salesmen,
"took his sexual pleasures wherever he could find them".[7] How Greene came to this opinion
is unknown, as she never met Lovecraft's parents, though Lovecraft himself termed his mother a "touch-me-not" in a 1937 letter
noting that, after his early childhood, she avoided all physical contact with him.[8] This is contrary to Susie's treatment of a young
Lovecraft soon after his father's breakdown. According to the accounts of family friends Susie doted over the young Lovecraft to a
fault, pampering him and never letting him out of her sight.[9] Throughout his life Lovecraft maintained that his father fell into a
paralytic state, due to insomnia and being overworked, and remained that way until his death. It is unknown if Lovecraft was simply
[5]
kept ignorant of his father's illness or if his later remarks were intentionally misleading.

After his father's hospitalization, Lovecraft resided in the family home with his mother, his maternal aunts Lillian and Annie, and his
maternal grandparents Whipple and Robie.[10] Lovecraft later recollected that after his father's illness his mother was "permanently
stricken with grief." Whipple became a father figure to Lovecraft in this time, Lovecraft noting that his grandfather became the
"centre of my entire universe." Whipple, who traveled often on business, maintained correspondence with the young Lovecraft by
letter who, by the age of three, was already proficient at reading and writing. When home Whipple would share weird tales of his
own invention and show Lovecraft objects of art he had acquired in his European travels. Lovecraft also credits Whipple with being
instrumental in overcoming his fear of the dark when Whipple forced Lovecraft, at five years old, to walk through several darkened
rooms in the family home.[10] It was in this period that Lovecraft was introduced to some of his earliest literary influences such as
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner illustrated by Doré, One Thousand and One Nights, a gift from his mother, Thomas Bulfinch's Age
of Fable and Ovid's Metamorphoses.[11][12]

While there is no indication that Lovecraft was particularly close to his grandmother Robie, her death in 1896 had a profound effect.
By his own account, it sent his family into "a gloom from which it never fully recovered." His mother and aunts' wearing of black
mourning dresses "terrified" him, and it is at this time that Lovecraft, approximately five and half years old, started having
nightmares that would inform his later writing. Specifically, he began to have recurring nightmares of beings he termed "night-
gaunts"; their appearance he credited to the influence of Doré's illustrations, which would "whirl me through space at a sickening rate
of speed, the while fretting & impelling me with their detestable tridents." Thirty years later night gaunts would appear in Lovecraft's
writing.[13]

Lovecraft's earliest known literary works began at age seven with poems restyling the Odyssey and other mythological stories.[14]
Lovecraft has said that as a child he was enamored with the Roman pantheon of gods, accepting them as genuine expressions of
divinity and foregoing his Christian upbringing. He recalls, at five years old, being told Santa Claus didn't exist and retorting by
asking why "God is not equally a myth?"[15] At the age of eight he took a keen interest in the sciences, particularly astronomy and
chemistry. He also examined the anatomy books available to him in the family library, learning the specifics of human reproduction
that had yet to be explained to him, and found that it "virtually killed my interest in the subject."[16] In 1902, according to Lovecraft's
own correspondence, astronomy became a guiding influence on his world view. He began producing the periodical Rhode Island
Journal of Astronomy, of which 69 issues survive, using the hectograph printing method.[17] Lovecraft went in and out of elementary
school repeatedly, oftentimes with home tutors making up for those lost school years, missing time due to health concerns that are not
entirely clear. The written recollections of his peers described him as both withdrawn yet openly welcoming to anyone who shared
[18]
his current fascination with astronomy, inviting anyone to look through the telescope he prized.

By 1900 Whipple's various business concerns were suffering a downturn and slowly reducing his family's wealth. He was forced to
let the family's hired servants go, leaving Lovecraft, Whipple and Susie, being the only unmarried sister, alone in the family
home.[19] In the spring of 1904 Whipple's largest business venture suffered a catastrophic failure. Within months he died due to a
stroke at age 70. After Whipple's death Susie was unable to support the upkeep of the expansive family home on what remained of
the Phillips' estate. Later that year she was forced to move herself and her son to a small duplex.[20] Lovecraft has called this time
one of the darkest of his life, remarking in a 1934 letter that he saw no point in living anymore.[21] In fall of the same year he started
high school. Much like his earlier school years, Lovecraft was at times removed from school for long periods for what he termed
"near breakdowns". He did say, though, that while having some conflicts with teachers, he enjoyed high school, becoming close with
a small circle of friends.[22] Aside from a pause in 1904 he also resumed publishing the Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy as well
as starting the Scientific Gazette, which dealt mostly with chemistry.[23] It was also during this period that Lovecraft produced the
, namely "The Beast in the Cave" and "TheAlchemist".[24]
first of the types of fiction he would later be known for

It was in 1908, prior to his high school graduation, when Lovecraft suffered another health crisis of some sort, though this instance
was seemingly more severe than any prior. The exact circumstances and causes remain unknown. The only direct records are
Lovecraft's own later correspondence wherein he described it variously as a "nervous collapse" and "a sort of breakdown", in one
letter blaming it on the stress of high school despite his enjoying it. In another letter concerning the events of 1908 he notes, "I was
and am prey to intense headaches, insomnia, and general nervous weakness which prevents my continuous application to any thing."
Though Lovecraft maintained that he was to attend Brown University after high school, he never graduated and never attended school
again. Whether Lovecraft suffered from a physical ailment, a mental one, or some combination thereof has never been determined.
An account from a high school classmate described Lovecraft as exhibiting "terrible tics" and that at times "he'd be sitting in his seat
and he'd suddenly up and jump." Harry Brobst, who recorded the account and had a Ph.D. in psychology, claimed that chorea minor
was the most likely cause of Lovecraft's childhood symptoms while noting that instances of chorea minor after adolescence are very
rare.[25] Lovecraft himself acknowledged in letters that he suffered from bouts of chorea as a child.[26] Brobst further ventured that
Lovecraft's 1908 breakdown was attributed to a "hysteroid seizure", a term that today usually denotes atypical depression.[27] In
another letter concerning the events of 1908, Lovecraft stated that he "could hardly bear to see or speak to anyone, & liked to shut out
[28]
the world by pulling down dark shades & using artificial light."
Earliest recognition (1908–1914)
Not much of Lovecraft and Susie's activities from late 1908 to 1913 are recorded.[28] Lovecraft mentions a steady continuation of
their financial decline highlighted by a failed business venture of his uncle that cost Susie a large portion of their dwindling wealth.
Accounts differ on how reclusive Susie and Lovecraft were during this time. A friend of Susie, Clara Hess, recalled a visit during
which Susie spoke continuously about Lovecraft being "so hideous that he hid from everyone and did not like to walk upon the
streets where people could gaze on him." Despite Hess' protest that this wasn't the case, Susie maintained this stance.[29] In the same
[30]
account though, Hess said she regularly saw Susie out and about riding streetcars.

For his part, Lovecraft said he found his mother to be "a positive marvel of consideration."[31] A next-door neighbor later pointed out
that what others in the neighborhood often supposed were loud, nocturnal quarrels between mother and son, she recognized as being
recitations of Shakespeare; an activity that seemed to delight mother and son.[32] Susie had an adoration for French literature, having
studied French in boarding school. Lovecraft, though he never matched his mother's admiration of French literature, admired her
knowledge and devotion to it.[33] Lovecraft recalls Susie also had a passion for painting landscapes of the surrounding countryside,
though none of her work survives today. One of Lovecraft's later friends, C. M. Eddy Jr., became aware of Lovecraft due to his wife
Muriel, whose mother-in-law attended a women's suffrage meeting where she met Susie.[30]

During this period Lovecraft revived his earlier scientific periodicals.[28] He endeavored to commit himself to the study of organic
chemistry, Susie buying the expensive glass chemistry assemblage he wanted.[34] Lovecraft found his studies were hobbled by the
mathematics involved, which he found boring and would cause headaches that would incapacitate him for a day.[35] Lovecraft's first
poem that wasn't self-published appeared in a local newspaper in 1912. Called "Providence in 2000 A.D.", the poem envisioned a
future where proper people of English heritage were displaced by immigrants.[36] Surviving unpublished poems from this period,
most notoriously "On the Creation of Niggers", were also emblematic of the xenophobia and racism inherent in much of Lovecraft's
later work.[37]

In 1911 Lovecraft's letters to editors began appearing in pulp and weird fiction magazines, most notably Argosy.[38] A 1913 letter
critical of Fred Jackson, a prominent writer for Argosy, started Lovecraft down a path that would greatly affect his life. Lovecraft
described Jackson's stories as "trivial, effeminate, and, in places, coarse." Continuing, Lovecraft said that Jackson's characters exhibit
the "delicate passions and emotions proper to negroes and anthropoid apes." This sparked a nearly year-long feud in the letters
section of Argosy between Lovecraft, along with his occasional supporters, and the majority of readers critical of his view of Jackson.
Lovecraft's biggest critic was John Russell, who often replied in verse, and to whom Lovecraft felt compelled to reply to because he
respected Russell's writing skills.[39] The most immediate effect of the feud was the recognition garnered from Edward F. Daas, then
head editor of the United Amateur Press Association.[40] Daas invited Russell and Lovecraft to the organization and both accepted,
Lovecraft in April 1914.[41]

Rejuvenation and tragedy (1914–1921)

"With the advent of United I
obtained a renewed will to
live; a renewed sense of
existence as other than a
superfluous weight; and found
a sphere in which I could feel
that my efforts were not
wholly futile. For the first time
I could imagine that my
clumsy gropings after art were
a little more than faint cries
lost in the unlistening void."
—Lovecraft in 1921.[42]
Lovecraft was elected to the position of first vice-president of the UAPA.[47] Two years later he was elected president and appointed
Lovecraft immersed himself in the world of amateur journalism for most of the following
decade.[42] During this period he was an advocate for amateurism versus
commercialism.[43] Lovecraft's definition of commercialism, though, was specific to
writing for, what he considered, low-brow publications for pay. He contrasted this with his
view of "professional publication", which he termed as writing for journals and publishers
he considered respectable. He thought of amateur journalism as training and practice for a
professional career.[44] Lovecraft was appointed to chairman of the Department of Public
Criticism of the UAPA in late 1914.[45] He used this position to advocate for his, what
many considered peculiar, insistence on the superiority of English language usage that most
writers already considered archaic. Emblematic of the Anglophile opinions he maintained
throughout his life, he openly criticized other UAPA contributors for their "Americanisms"
and "slang". Often these criticisms were couched in xenophobic and racist arguments
bemoaning the "bastardization" of the "national language" by immigrants.[46] In mid-1915
other board members that mostly shared his view on the supremacy of classical English over modern American English.[48] Another
significant event of this time was the beginning of World War I. Lovecraft published multiple criticisms of the US government's, and
[49]
the American public's reluctance to join the war to protect England, which he viewed as the America's homeland.

In 1916 Lovecraft published his early short story "The Alchemist" in the main UAPA journal, a departure from his usual verse. Due
in no small part to the encouragement of W. Paul Cook, another UAPA member and future life-long friend, Lovecraft began writing
and publishing more fiction.[50] Soon to follow were "The Tomb" and "Dagon".[51] "The Tomb", by Lovecraft's own admission,
follows closely the style and construction of the writings of one of his largest influences, Edgar Allan Poe.[52] "Dagon" though, is
considered Lovecraft's first work that embraced the concepts and themes that his writing would later be known for.[53] In 1918
Lovecraft's term as president of the UAPA elapsed, and he took his former post as chairman of the Department of Public
Criticism.[54] In 1919 Lovecraft published another short story
, "Beyond the Wall of Sleep".[55]

In 1917 came two first hand accounts suggesting that, despite his climb in the ranks of the UAPA, Lovecraft still lived a fairly
hermetical life. One comes from Cook himself, the other Rheinhart Kleiner, a Brooklyn-based UAPA writer.[56] Both recalled that
during their visits Lovecraft's mother regularly checked in on Lovecraft. Kleiner mentioned that "at every hour or so his mother
appeared in the doorway with a glass of milk, and Lovecraft forthwith drank it."[57] In the same account Kleiner described Susie as
"very cordial and even vivacious."[58] Cook recounts an almost comical delay of his meeting with Lovecraft wherein Susie and
Lillian wouldn't let Cook in because Lovecraft had been up all night writing and couldn't be disturbed.[58] Eventually Lovecraft
appeared at the door in his "dressing gown and slippers." Lovecraft later attributed his mother and aunt's reticence to allow Cook in
being due to his unkempt appearance and their general dislike of Lovecraft's involvement with amateur journalism.[56] Also in 1917,
as Lovecraft related to Kleiner, was Lovecraft's aborted attempt to enlist in the army. Though he passed the physical exam,[59] he told
Kleiner that his mother "has threatened to go to any lengths, legal or otherwise, if I do not reveal all the ills which unfit me for the
army."[60]

In the winter of 1918–1919, Susie, exhibiting symptoms of a "nervous breakdown" of some sort, went to live with her elder sister
Lillian. It is unclear what Susie may have been suffering from. Clara Hess, interviewed decades later, recalled instances of Susie
describing "weird and fantastic creatures that rushed out from behind buildings and from corners at dark." In the same account Hess
describes a time when they crossed paths in downtown Providence and Susie "was excited and apparently did not know where she
was." Whatever the causes, in March 1919 they resulted in Susie being committed to Butler Hospital, like her husband before her.[61]
Lovecraft's immediate reaction to Susie's commitment was visceral, writing to Kleiner that, "existence seems of little value," and that
he wished "it might terminate."[62] Speaking to Susie's doctors, a month after she entered Butler, Lovecraft came to the realization
that she was never going to be released.

The nature of Susie's illness is impossible to ascertain. Her medical records were lost in a fire, and the only Lovecraft researcher to
have seen them prior was Winfield Townley Scott. His account describes Susie weeping often and speaking regularly about both her
family's financial collapse and her son, whom she described as "a poet of the highest order." Her psychiatrist claimed she had
Oedipus complex.[63] The psychiatric views of the day, still beholden to archaic Victorian assumptions, make any contemporary
diagnosis of Susie questionable. No matter their symptoms or situations, women were predominately diagnosed (as Susie was) with
hysteria, a concept that women are inherently mentally frail due to having "thinner blood" as result of menstruation and having a
uterus.[64] Lovecraft visited Susie often, walking the large grounds with her, and sent her letters on a regularbasis.[62]

Late 1919 saw Lovecraft become more outgoing. After a period of isolation, he began joining friends in trips to writer gatherings, the
first being a talk in Boston presented by Lord Dunsany, whom Lovecraft recently discovered and idolized.[65] In early 1920, at an
amateur writer convention, he met Frank Belknap Long, who would end up being Lovecraft's most influential and closest confidant
for the rest of his life.[66] This period also proved to be the most prolific of Lovecraft's short-story career.[67] The influence of
Dunsany is readily apparent in his 1919 output, later be to coined Lovecraft's Dream Cycle, with stories like "The White Ship", "The
Doom that Came to Sarnath", and "The Statement of Randolph Carter". In early 1920 followed "Celephais" and "The Cats of
Ulthar".[68] It was later in 1920 that Lovecraft began publishing the earliest stories that fit into the Cthulhu Mythos. The Cthulhu
Mythos, a term coined by August Derleth, encompasses Lovecraft's stories that share a commonality in fictional locations and
Lovecraft's invented pantheon of god-like beings known as The Great Old Ones.[69] The poem "Nyarlathotep" and short story "The
Crawling Chaos", in collaboration with Winifred Virginia Jackson, were written in late 1920.[70] Following in early 1921 came "The
Nameless City", the first story that falls definitively within the Cthulhu Mythos.[71] In it is found one of Lovecraft's most enduring
bits of writing, a couplet recited by his creationAbdul Alhazred, "That is not dead which can eternal lie; And with strange aeons even
death may die."[71]

On May 24, 1921, Sarah Susan (Susie) Phillips Lovecraft died in Butler Hospital, due to complications from a gall bladder surgery
five days earlier.[72] Lovecraft's initial reaction, expressed in a letter nine days after Susie's death, was that of an "extreme nervous
shock" that crippled him physically and emotionally, again remarking that he found no reason he should continue living.[72] Despite
Lovecraft's immediate reaction to his mother's death, he continued to attend amateur journalist conventions. It was at one such
convention in July that Lovecraft metSonia Greene.[73]

Marriage and New York

Lovecraft's aunts disapproved of this relationship with Sonia. Lovecraft and Greene married on March 3, 1924, and relocated to her
Brooklyn apartment at 793 Flatbush Avenue;[74] she thought he needed to get out of Providence in order to flourish and was willing
to support him financially.[75] Greene, who had been married before, later said Lovecraft had performed satisfactorily as a lover,
though she had to take the initiative in all aspects of the relationship.[75] She attributed Lovecraft's passive nature to a stultifying
upbringing by his mother.[75] Lovecraft's weight increased to 90 kg (200 lb) on his wife's home cooking.
[75]

He was enthralled by New York, and, in what was informally dubbed the Kalem Club, he acquired a group of encouraging
intellectual and literary friends who urged him to submit stories to Weird Tales; editor Edwin Baird accepted many otherworldly
'Dream Cycle' Lovecraft stories for the ailing publication, though they were heavily criticized by a section of the readership.[76][77]
Established informally some years before Lovecraft arrived in New York, the core Kalem Club members were boys' adventure
novelist Henry Everett McNeil; the lawyer and anarchist writerJames Ferdinand Morton, Jr.; and the poet Reinhardt Kleiner.

On New Year's Day of 1925, Sonia moved to Cleveland for a job opportunity, and Lovecraft left Flatbush for a small first-floor
apartment on 169 Clinton Street "at the edge of Red Hook"—a location which came to discomfort him greatly.[74] Later that year the
Kalem Club's four regular attendees were joined by Lovecraft along with his protégé
Frank Belknap Long, bookseller George Willard
Kirk, and Lovecraft's close friend Samuel Loveman. Loveman was Jewish, but was unaware of Lovecraft's nativist attitudes.
Conversely, it has been suggested that Lovecraft, who disliked mention of sexual matters, was unaware that Loveman and some of his
other friends were homosexual.[78]

Financial difficulties
Not long after the marriage, Greene lost her business and her assets disappeared in a bank failure; she also became ill. Lovecraft
made efforts to support his wife through regular jobs, but his lack of previous work experience meant he lacked proven marketable
skills. After a few unsuccessful spells as a low-level clerk, his job-seeking became desultory. The publisher of Weird Tales attempted
to put the loss-making magazine on a business footing and offered the job of editor to Lovecraft, who declined, citing his reluctance
to relocate to Chicago; "think of the tragedy of such a move for an aged antiquarian," the 34-year-old writer declared. Baird was
replaced with Farnsworth Wright, whose writing Lovecraft had criticized. Lovecraft's submissions were often rejected by Wright.
(This may have been partially due to censorship guidelines imposed in the aftermath of a Weird Tales story that hinted at necrophilia,
[76][77]
although after Lovecraft's death Wright accepted many of the stories he had originally rejected.)

Brooklyn
Greene, moving where the work was, relocated to Cincinnati, and then to Cleveland; her employment required constant travel. Added
to the daunting reality of failure in a city with a large immigrant population, Lovecraft's single-room apartment at 169 Clinton Street
in Brooklyn Heights, not far from the working-class waterfront neighborhood Red Hook, was burgled, leaving him with only the
clothes he was wearing. In August 1925 he wrote "The Horror at Red Hook" and "He", in the latter of which the narrator says "My
coming to New York had been a mistake; for whereas I had looked for poignant wonder and inspiration … I had found instead only a
sense of horror and oppression which threatened to master, paralyze, and annihilate me". It was at around this time he wrote the
outline for "The Call of Cthulhu", with its theme of the insignificance of all humanity. In the bibliographical study H. P. Lovecraft:
Against the World, Against Life, Michel Houellebecq suggested that the misfortunes fed Lovecraft's central motivation as a writer,
which he said was racial resentment.[79] With a weekly allowance Greene sent, Lovecraft moved to a working-class area of Brooklyn
Heights, where he subsisted in a tiny apartment. He had lost 40 pounds (18 kg) of body weight by 1926, when he left for
Providence.[79][80]

Return to Providence
Back in Providence, Lovecraft lived in a
"spacious brown Victorian wooden house" at
10 Barnes Street until 1933.[81] The same
address is given as the home of Dr. Willett in
Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter
Ward. The period beginning after his return
to Providence—the last decade of his life—
was Lovecraft's most prolific; in that time he
Lovecraft's final home, May 1933
until March 10, 1937 produced short stories, as well as his longest
work of fiction The Case of Charles Dexter
Ward and At the Mountains of Madness. He
frequently revised work for other authors and did a large amount of ghost-writing, including
"The Mound", "Winged Death", and "The Diary of Alonzo Typer". Client Harry Houdini was
laudatory, and attempted to help Lovecraft by introducing him to the head of a newspaper
[82]
syndicate. Plans for a further project were ended by Houdini's death.

Although he was able to combine his distinctive style (allusive and amorphous description by
horrified though passive narrators) with the kind of stock content and action that the editor of
Weird Tales wanted—Wright paid handsomely to snap up "The Dunwich Horror" which Original Phillips family
proved very popular with readers—Lovecraft increasingly produced work that brought him no gravestone bearing H. P.
remuneration. Affecting a calm indifference to the reception of his works, Lovecraft was in Lovecraft's name
reality extremely sensitive to criticism and easily precipitated into withdrawal. He was known
to give up trying to sell a story after it had been once rejected. Sometimes, as with The
Shadow Over Innsmouth (which included a rousing chase that supplied action) he wrote a story that might have been commercially
viable, but did not try to sell it. Lovecraft even ignored interested publishers. He failed to reply when one inquired about any novel
Lovecraft might have ready: although he had completed such a work,The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, it was never typed up.[83]

A few years after Lovecraft had moved to Providence, he and his wife Sonia Greene, having been living separately for so long,
agreed to an amicable divorce. Greene moved to California in 1933 and remarried in 1936, unaware that Lovecraft, despite his
assurances to the contrary, had never officially signed the final decree.[84]

Last years
Lovecraft was never able to provide even basic expenses by selling stories and doing paid literary work for others. He lived frugally,
subsisting on an inheritance that was nearly depleted by the time he died. He sometimes went without food to be able to pay the cost
of mailing letters.[85] Eventually, he was forced to move to meager lodgings with his surviving aunt. He was also deeply affected by
the suicide of his correspondent Robert E. Howard. In early 1937, he was diagnosed with cancer of the small intestine[86] and
suffered from malnutrition as a result. He lived in constant pain until his death on March 15, 1937 in Providence. In accordance with
his lifelong scientific curiosity, he kept a diary of his illness until close to the moment of his death.

Lovecraft was listed along with his parents on the Phillips family monument (41°51′14″N 71°22′52″W). In 1977, fans erected a
headstone in Swan Point Cemetery on which they inscribed his name, the dates of his birth and death, and the phrase "I AM
[87]
PROVIDENCE"—a line from one of his personal letters.
Groups of enthusiasts annually observe the anniversaries of Lovecraft's death at
Ladd Observatory and of his birth at his grave site. In July 2013, the Providence City
Council designated "H. P. Lovecraft Memorial Square" and installed a
commemorative sign at the intersection of Angell and Prospect streets, near the
author's former residences.[88]

Appreciation
Gravestone of H. P. Lovecraft
Within genre
By 1957 Floyd C. Gale of Galaxy Science Fiction said that "like R. E. Howard,
Lovecraft seemingly goes on forever; the two decades since their death are as nothing. In any event, they appear more prolific than
ever. What with de Camp, Nyberg and Derleth avidly rooting out every scrap of their writings and expanding them into novels, there
may never be an end to their posthumous careers".[89] According to Joyce Carol Oates, Lovecraft (and Edgar Allan Poe in the 19th
century) has exerted "an incalculable influence on succeeding generations of writers of horror fiction".[90] Horror, fantasy, and
science fiction author Stephen King called Lovecraft "the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale."[91][92]
King has made it clear in his semi-autobiographical non-fiction book Danse Macabre that Lovecraft was responsible for his own
gest figure to influence his fiction writing.[93]
fascination with horror and the macabre and was the lar

Literary
Early efforts to revise an established literary view of Lovecraft as an author of 'pulp' were resisted by some eminent critics; in 1945
Edmund Wilson expressed the opinion that "the only real horror in most of these fictions is the horror of bad taste and bad art". But
"Mystery and Adventure" columnist Will Cuppy of the New York Herald Tribune recommended to readers a volume of Lovecraft's
stories, asserting that "the literature of horror and macabre fantasy belongs with mystery in its broader sense."[94] Gale said that
"Lovecraft at his best could build a mood of horror unsurpassed; at his worst, he was laughable".[89] In 1962 Colin Wilson, in his
survey of anti-realist trends in fictionThe Strength to Dream, cited Lovecraft as one of the pioneers of the "assault on rationality" and
included him with M.R. James, H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, Tolkien and others as one of the builders of mythicised realities over
against the failing project of literary realism. Subsequently Lovecraft began to acquire the status of a cult writer in the counterculture
of the 1960s, and reprints of his work proliferated. In 2005 the status of classic American writer conferred by a Library of America
edition was accorded to Lovecraft with the publication ofTales, a collection of his weird fiction stories.[95]

Philosophical
Philosopher Graham Harman, seeing Lovecraft as having a unique—though implicit—anti-reductionalistontology, writes: "No other
writer is so perplexed by the gap between objects and the power of language to describe them, or between objects and the qualities
they possess."[96] Harman said of leading figures at the initial speculative realism conference (which included philosophers Quentin
Meillassoux, Ray Brassier, and Iain Hamilton Grant) that, though they shared no philosophical heroes, all were enthusiastic readers
of Lovecraft.[97] Speculative realists, Mark Fisher and other contemporary philosophers, took Lovecraft seriously, mainly because
Lovecraft's weird reality as presented in his novels, had nothing to do with the Gothic's insistence in the supernatural, but presented
another reality incomprehensible to the human mind, but nonetheless real. According to scholar S. T. Joshi: "There is never an entity
in Lovecraft that is not in some fashion material".[98]

Themes
Several themes recur in Lovecraft's stories:

Forbidden knowledge Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common
human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in
Forbidden, dark, esoterically veiled
knowledge is a central theme in many of
Lovecraft's works.[100] Many of his
characters are driven by curiosity or
scientific endeavor, and in many of his
stories the knowledge they uncover proves
Promethean in nature, either filling the
seeker with regret for what they have
learned, destroying them psychologically, or
completely destroying the person who holds
the knowledge.[100][101][102][103][104][105]
Some critics argue that this theme is a
reflection of Lovecraft's contempt of the world around him, causing him to search inwardly for knowledge and inspiration.
the vast cosmos-at-large. To me there is nothing but puerility in a tale in
which the human form—and the local human passions and conditions and
standards—are depicted as native to other worlds or other universes. To
achieve the essence of real externality, whether of time or space or
dimension, one must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil,
love and hate, and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary
race called mankind, have any existence at all. Only the human scenes and
characters must have human qualities. These must be handled with
unsparing realism, (not catch-penny romanticism) but when we cross the
line to the boundless and hideous unknown—the shadow-haunted Outside
—we must remember to leave our humanity and terrestrialism at the
threshold.
— H. P. Lovecraft, in note to the editor of Weird Tales, on resubmission of
"The Call of Cthulhu"[99]
[106]

Non-human influences on humanity

The beings of Lovecraft's mythos often have human servants; Cthulhu, for instance, is worshiped under various names by cults[107]
among both the Greenlandic Inuit and voodoo circles of Louisiana, and in many other parts of the world.

These worshippers served a useful narrative purpose for Lovecraft. Many beings of the Mythos were too powerful to be defeated by
human opponents, and so horrific that direct knowledge of them meant insanity for the victim. When dealing with such beings,
Lovecraft needed a way to provideexposition and build tension without bringing the story to a premature end. Human followers gave
him a way to reveal information about their "gods" in a diluted form, and also made it possible for his protagonists to win paltry
victories. Lovecraft, like his contemporaries, envisioned "savages" as closer to supernatural knowledge unknown to civilized man.

Inherited guilt
Another recurring theme in Lovecraft's stories is the idea that descendants in a bloodline can never escape the stain of crimes
committed by their forebears, at least if the crimes are atrocious enough. Descendants may be very far removed, both in place and in
time (and, indeed, in culpability), from the act itself, and yet, they may be haunted by the revenant past, e.g. "The Rats in the Walls",
"The Lurking Fear", "Arthur Jermyn", "The Alchemist", The Shadow over Innsmouth, "The Doom that Came to Sarnath" and The
Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

Fate
Often in Lovecraft's works the protagonist is not in control of his own actions, or finds it impossible to change course. Many of his
characters would be free from danger if they simply managed to run away; however, this possibility either never arises or is somehow
curtailed by some outside force, such as in "The Colour Out of Space" and "The Dreams in the Witch House". Often his characters
are subject to a compulsive influence from powerful malevolent or indifferent beings. As with the inevitability of one's ancestry,
eventually even running away, or death itself, provides no safety ("The Thing on the Doorstep", "The Outsider", The Case of Charles
Dexter Ward, etc.). In some cases, this doom is manifest in the entirety of humanity, and no escape is possible (The Shadow Out of
Time).

Civilization under threat

Lovecraft was familiar with the work of the German conservative-revolutionary theorist Oswald Spengler, whose pessimistic thesis
of the decadence of the modern West formed a crucial element in Lovecraft's overall anti-modern worldview. Spenglerian imagery of
cyclical decay is present in particular in At the Mountains of Madness. S. T. Joshi, in H. P. Lovecraft: The Decline of the West, places
[108]
Spengler at the center of his discussion of Lovecraft's political and philosophical ideas.
Lovecraft wrote to Clark Ashton Smith in 1927: "It is my belief, and was so long before Spengler put his seal of scholarly proof on it,
that our mechanical and industrial age is one of frank decadence".[109] Lovecraft was also acquainted with the writings of another
German philosopher of decadence:Friedrich Nietzsche.[110]

Lovecraft frequently dealt with the idea of civilization struggling against dark, primitive barbarism. In some stories this struggle is at
an individual level; many of his protagonists are cultured, highly educated men who are gradually corrupted by some obscure and
feared influence.

In such stories, the curse is often a hereditary one, either because of interbreeding with non-humans (e.g., "Facts Concerning the Late
Arthur Jermyn and His Family" (1920), The Shadow over Innsmouth (1931)) or through direct magical influence (The Case of
Charles Dexter Ward). Physical and mental degradation often come together; this theme of 'tainted blood' may represent concerns
relating to Lovecraft's own family history, particularly the death of his father due to what Lovecraft must have suspected to be a
syphilitic disorder.

In other tales, an entire society is threatened by barbarism. Sometimes the barbarism comes as an external threat, with a civilized race
destroyed in war (e.g., "Polaris"). Sometimes, an isolated pocket of humanity falls into decadence andatavism of its own accord (e.g.,
"The Lurking Fear"). But most often, such stories involve a civilized culture being gradually undermined by a malevolent underclass
influenced by inhuman forces.

It is likely that the "Roaring Twenties" left Lovecraft disillusioned as he was still obscure and struggling with the basic necessities of
daily life, combined with seeing non-Western European immigrants in New York City.

Race, ethnicity, and class

Race is the most controversial aspect of Lovecraft's legacy, expressed in many disparaging remarks against the various non-Anglo-
Saxon races and cultures in his work. As he grew older, his original Anglo-Saxon racial worldview softened into a classism or elitism
which regarded the superior race to include all those self-ennobled through high culture. From the start, Lovecraft did not hold all
white people in uniform high regard, but rather esteemed the English people and those of English descent.[111][112][113][113] He
praised non-WASP groups such as Hispanics and Jews; however his private writings on groups such as Irish Catholics, German
immigrants and African-Americans were consistently negative.[114][115] In an early poem, the 1912 On the Creation of Niggers,
Lovecraft describes black people not as human but "beasts... in semi-human figure, filled it with vice". In his early published essays,
private letters and personal utterances, he argued for a strong color line to preserve race and culture.[86][111][112][116] He made these
arguments by direct disparagement of various races in his journalism and letters,[79][86][111][112][113] and perhaps allegorically in his
fiction concerning non-human races.[102][111][117][118] Some have interpreted his racial attitude as being more cultural than brutally
biological: Lovecraft showed sympathy to those who adopted Western culture, even to the extent of marrying a Jewish woman whom
he viewed as "well assimilated".[86][111][112][118] While Lovecraft's racial attitude has been seen as directly influenced by the society
of his day, especially the New England society he grew up in,[111][112][113][119][120] his racism appeared stronger than the general
popular viewpoint.[113][118]

Risks of a scientific era

At the turn of the 20th century, humanity's increased reliance upon science was both opening new worlds and solidifying
understanding of ours. Lovecraft portrays this potential for a growing gap of man's understanding of the universe as a potential for
horror, most notably in "The Colour Out of Space", where the inability of science to comprehend a contaminated meteorite leads to
horror.

In a letter to James F. Morton in 1923, Lovecraft specifically pointed to Einstein's theory on relativity as throwing the world into
chaos and making the cosmos a jest; in a letter to Woodburn Harris in 1929, he speculated that technological comforts risk the
collapse of science. Indeed, at a time when men viewed science as limitless and powerful, Lovecraft imagined alternative potential
and fearful outcomes. In "The Call of Cthulhu", Lovecraft's characters encounter architecture which is "abnormal, non-Euclidean, and
loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours".[121] Non-Euclidean geometry is the mathematical language and
background of Einstein'sgeneral theory of relativity, and Lovecraft references it repeatedly in exploring alienarchaeology.

Religion
Lovecraft's works are ruled by several distinct pantheons of deities (actually aliens worshiped as such by humans) who are either
indifferent or actively hostile to humanity. Lovecraft's actual philosophy has been termed "cosmic indifference" and this is expressed
in his fiction.[122] Several of Lovecraft's stories of the Old Ones (alien beings of the Cthulhu Mythos) propose alternate mythic
human origins in contrast to those found in the creation stories of existing religions, expanding on a natural world view. For instance,
in Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness it is proposed that humankind was actually created as a slave race by the Old Ones, and
that life on Earth as we know it evolved from scientific experiments abandoned by the Elder Things. Protagonist characters in
Lovecraft are usually educated men, citing scientific and rational evidence to support their non-faith. "Herbert West – Reanimator"
reflects on the atheism common in academic circles. In "The Silver Key", the character Randolph Carter loses the ability to dream
and seeks solace in religion, specificallyCongregationalism, but does not find it and ultimately loses faith.

Lovecraft himself adopted the stance of atheism early in life. In 1932, he wrote in a letter to
Robert E. Howard:

All I say is that I think it is damned unlikely that anything like a central cosmic will, a spirit world, or an eternal
survival of personality exist. They are the most preposterous and unjustified of all the guesses which can be made
about the universe, and I am not enough of a hairsplitter to pretend that I don't regard them as arrant and negligible
moonshine. In theory, I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of radical evidence I must be classed, practically
and provisionally, as an atheist.[123]

Superstition
In 1926, famed magician and escapist Harry Houdini asked Lovecraft to ghostwrite a treatise exploring the topic of superstition.
Houdini's unexpected death later that year halted the project, but The Cancer of Superstition was partially completed by Lovecraft
along with collaborator C. M. Eddy, Jr. A previously unknown manuscript of the work was discovered in 2016 in a collection owned
by a magic shop. The book states "all superstitious beliefs are relics of a common 'prehistoric ignorance' in humans," and goes on to
explore various superstitious beliefs in different cultures and times."[124]

Influences on Lovecraft
[125] His interest started from his childhood days when his grandfather
Some of Lovecraft's work was inspired by his own nightmares.
would tell him Gothic horror stories.

Lovecraft's most significant literary influence was Edgar Allan Poe. He had a British writing style due to his love of British literature.
Like Lovecraft, Poe's work was out of step with the prevailing literary trends of his era. Both authors created distinctive, singular
worlds of fantasy and employed archaisms in their writings. This influence can be found in such works as his novella The Shadow
Over Innsmouth[126] where Lovecraft references Poe's story The Imp of the Perverse by name in Chapter 3, and in his poem
"Nemesis", where the "... ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber"[127] suggest the "... ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir"[128] found in
Poe's "Ulalume". A direct quote from the poem and a reference to Poe's only novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of
Nantucket is alluded to in Lovecraft's magnum opus At the Mountains of Madness.[129] Both authors shared many biographical
similarities as well, such as the loss of their fathers at young ages and an early interest in poetry
.

He was influenced by Arthur Machen's[130] carefully constructed tales concerning the survival of ancient evil into modern times in
an otherwise realistic world and his beliefs in hidden mysteries which lay behind reality. Lovecraft was also influenced by authors
such as Oswald Spengler and Robert W. Chambers. Chambers was the writer of The King in Yellow, of whom Lovecraft wrote in a
letter to Clark Ashton Smith: "Chambers is like Rupert Hughes and a few other fallen Titans – equipped with the right brains and
education but wholly out of the habit of using them". Lovecraft's discovery of the stories of Lord Dunsany,[131] with their pantheon
of mighty gods existing in dreamlike outer realms, moved his writing in a new direction, resulting in a series of imitative fantasies in
a "Dreamlands" setting.

Lovecraft also cited Algernon Blackwood as an influence, quoting The Centaur in the head paragraph of "The Call of Cthulhu". He
[132]
declared Blackwood's story "The Willows" to be the single best piece of weird fiction ever written.

Another inspiration came from a completely different source: scientific progress in biology, astronomy,[133] geology, and
physics.[134] His study of science contributed to Lovecraft's view of the human race as insignificant, powerless, and doomed in a
materialistic and mechanistic universe.[135] Lovecraft was a keen amateur astronomer from his youth, often visiting the Ladd
Observatory in Providence, and penning numerous astronomical articles for local newspapers. His astronomical telescope is now
housed in the rooms of theAugust Derleth Society.

Lovecraft's materialist views led him to espouse his philosophical views through his fiction; these philosophical views came to be
called cosmicism. Cosmicism took on a dark tone with his creation of what is today often called the Cthulhu Mythos, a pantheon of
alien extra-dimensional deities and horrors which predate humanity, and which are hinted at in eons-old myths and legends. The term
"Cthulhu Mythos" was coined by Lovecraft's correspondent and fellow author, August Derleth, after Lovecraft's death; Lovecraft
jocularly referred to his artificial mythology as "Y
og-Sothothery".

Lovecraft considered himself a man best suited to the early 18th century. His writing style, especially in his many letters, owes much
to Augustan British writers of the Enlightenment like Joseph Addison and Jonathan Swift.

Among the books found in his library (as evidenced in Lovecraft's Library by S. T. Joshi) was The Seven Who Were Hanged by
Leonid Andreyev and A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinderby James De Mille.

Lovecraft's style has often been subject to criticism,[130] yet scholars such as S. T. Joshi have shown that Lovecraft consciously
utilized a variety of literary devices to form a unique style of his own – these include conscious archaism, prose-poetic techniques
combined with essay-form techniques,alliteration, anaphora, crescendo, transferred epithet, metaphor, symbolism, and colloquialism.

Influence on culture
Lovecraft was relatively unknown during his own time.[136] While his stories
appeared in the pages of prominent pulp magazines such as Weird Tales (eliciting
letters of outrage as often as letters of praise from regular readers), not many people
knew his name. He did, however, correspond regularly with other contemporary
writers such as Clark Ashton Smith and August Derleth,[137] who became good
friends of his, even though they never met in person. This group of writers became
known as the "Lovecraft Circle", since their writing freely borrowed elements of
Lovecraft's stories, with his encouragement: the mysterious books with disturbing
names, the pantheon of ancient alien entities such as Cthulhu and Azathoth, and
eldritch places such as the New England town of Arkham and its Miskatonic
University.

After Lovecraft's death, the Lovecraft Circle carried on. August Derleth in particular
added to and expanded on Lovecraft's vision, not without controversy. While
Lovecraft considered his pantheon of alien gods a mere plot device, Derleth created
an entire cosmology, complete with a war between the good Elder Gods and the evil
Outer Gods, such as Cthulhu and his ilk. The forces of good were supposed to have
won, locking Cthulhu and others up beneath the earth, in the ocean, and so forth. H. P. Lovecraft memorial plaque at
22 Prospect Street in Providence.
Derleth's Cthulhu Mythos stories went on to associate different gods with the
traditional four elements of fire, air, earth and water — an artificial constraint which
required rationalizations on Derleth's part as Lovecraft himself never envisioned such a scheme.
Lovecraft's fiction has been grouped into three categories by some critics. While Lovecraft did not refer to these categories himself,
he did once write: "There are my 'Poe' pieces and myDunsany
' [138]
pieces' — but alas — where are any Lovecraft pieces?"

Macabre stories (c. 1905–1920);

Dream Cycle stories (c. 1920–1927);
Cthulhu / Lovecraft Mythosstories (c. 1925–1935).
Lovecraft's writing, particularly the so-called Cthulhu Mythos, has influenced fiction authors including modern horror and fantasy
writers. Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Bentley Little, Joe R. Lansdale, Alan Moore, Junji Ito, F. Paul Wilson, Brian Lumley,
Caitlín R. Kiernan, William S. Burroughs, and Neil Gaiman, have cited Lovecraft as one of their primary influences. Beyond direct
adaptation, Lovecraft and his stories have had a profound impact on popular culture. Some influence was direct, as he was a friend,
inspiration, and correspondent to many of his contemporaries, such as August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch and Fritz
Leiber.[139] Many later figures were influenced by Lovecraft's works, including author and artist Clive Barker, prolific horror writer
Stephen King,[139] Brian Keene[140] has several novels based on the Old Gods, comics writers Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman[141] and
Mike Mignola, English author Colin Wilson, film directors John Carpenter,[142] Stuart Gordon, Guillermo Del Toro[141] and artist H.
R. Giger.[143] Japan has also been significantly inspired and terrified by Lovecraft's creations and thus even entered the manga and
anime media. Chiaki J. Konaka is an acknowledged disciple and has participated in Cthulhu Mythos, expanding several Japanese
versions.[144] He is an anime scriptwriter who tends to add elements of cosmicism, and is credited for spreading the influence of
Lovecraft among anime base.[145] Along with Junji Ito, other influential manga artists have also been inspired by Lovecraft.[146][147]
Novelist and manga author, Hideyuki Kikuchi, incorporated a number of locations, beings and events from the works of Lovecraft
into the manga Taimashin.[148]

Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges wrote his short story "There Are More Things" in memory of Lovecraft. Contemporary French
writer Michel Houellebecq wrote a literary biography of Lovecraft called H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life. Prolific
American writer Joyce Carol Oates wrote an introduction for a collection of Lovecraft stories. The Library of America published a
volume of Lovecraft's work in 2005, a reversal of traditional judgment that "has been nothing so far from the accepted canon as
Lovecraft".[149][150][151] French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari refer to Lovecraft in A Thousand Plateaus, calling
the short story "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" one of his masterpieces.[152]

Music
Lovecraft's fictional Mythos has influenced a number of musicians.

The psychedelic rock band H. P. Lovecraft (who shortened their name to Lovecraft and then Love Craft in the 1970s)
released the albums H. P. Lovecraft and H. P. Lovecraft II in 1967 and 1968 respectively; their titles included The
"
White Ship" and "At the Mountains of Madness", both titled after Lovecraft stories. The founders of their record
company, Bill Traut and George Badonsky, were fans of the author and gained August Derleth's permission to use
Lovecraft's name for the band.[153]
Metallica recorded a song inspired by "The Call of Cthulhu", an instrumental titled "The Call of Ktulu", and another
song based on The Shadow Over Innsmouthtitled "The Thing That Should Not Be", and another based onFrank
Belknap Long's "The Hounds of Tindalos", titled "All Nightmare Long".[154]
The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets' entire repertoire is Lovecraft-based.
German metal group Mekong Delta made an album calledThe Music of Erich Zann.
"You're So Dark", B-side fromAM's "One For The Road", byArctic Monkeys, mentions Lovecraft as one of the
authors of the "dark" culture along with Edgar Allan Poe.
Heavy metal band Mercyful Fate produced "The Mad Arab (Part 1)" and "Kutulu (The Mad Arab Part 2)" on their
albums Time and Into The Unknown based on Abdul Alhazred, the "Mad Arab" who created theNecronomicon in the
Lovecraft universe.
"Lovecraft in Brooklyn" is the eighth track onthe Mountain Goats' 2000 album Heretic Pride.
Deathrock band Rudimentary Peni's Cacophony (album) from 1988 was inspired by Lovecraft's work, as many of the
song titles and lyrics are derived from his writing. Lead vocalist and guitarist
Nick Blinko has cited his fascination with
the Lovecraft mythos is what influenced him to create the album.
Cradle of Filth's song Mother of Abominations begins with the chant, "Ia Ia Chtulhu Ftagn"

Games
Lovecraft has also influenced gaming.Chaosium's role-playing game Call of Cthulhu (currently in its seventh major edition) has been
in print for 30 years. The tabletop games Arkham Horror, Eldritch Horror, Mansions of Madness and Elder Sign include some
themes derived from the Call of Cthulhu RPG. Three collectible card games are
Mythos, Call of Cthulhu: The Living Card Game, and
Arkham Horror: The Card Game.[155] With the rise in popularity of tabletop gaming, many other Lovecraft-themed games have been
produced, for example (note that this is not an exhaustive list; it is a small selection from better
-known designers and publishers):

Cthulhu Fluxx (Looney Labs) by Keith Baker with art by Derek Ring. This is a Lovecraft-themed version of theFluxx
series of games.
Cthulhu Gloom (Atlas Games) by Keith Baker with art by Todd Remick. This is a Lovecraft-themed version of the
Gloom series of games.
Cthulhu Realms (Tasty Minstrel Games) byDarwin Kastle.
Cthulhu Wars (Green Eye Games/Petersen Games) bySandy Petersen, original writer of the Call of Cthulhu RPG,
and art by Richard Luong.
The Doom that Came to Atlantic City(Cryptozoic Entertainment) by Lee Moyer and Keith Baker, with miniatures by
sculptor Paul Komoda.[156]
Kingsport Festival (Passport Game Studios) by Andrea Chiarvesio and Gianluca Santopietro. Based thematically on
Lovecraft's The Festival and his fictional town ofKingsport from The Terrible Old Man.
Munchkin Cthulhu (Steve Jackson Games) by J. H. G. Hendricks andSteve Jackson. This is a Lovecraft-themed
version of the Munchkin series of games.
The Stars are Right (Steve Jackson Games) by Klaus Westerhoff, with art by François Launet.
The Arkham Horror Files, a collection of games published byFantasy Flight Games
Several video games are based on or influenced heavily by Lovecraft such as Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, Quest for
Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness, Shadow of the Comet, The Lurking Horror, Prisoner of Ice, Shadowman, Alone in the Dark, Chzo
Mythos, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem,[157] Cthulhu Saves the World, Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened,[158] Bloodborne,[159]
Darkest Dungeon, Dead Space,[160] Splatterhouse, Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder, Darkness Within 2: The Dark
Lineage, Blood, The Last Door, They Bleed Pixels, Sundered, the Megami Tensei franchise,[161] Shadow Hearts,[162] and Quake. The
MMORPG The Secret World is heavily based on Lovecraftian lore. In The Elder Scrolls series, the Daedric Prince Hermaeus Mora
and his realm of Oblivion, Apocrypha, are both heavily influenced by Lovecraft. The Old Gods featured in Blizzard Entertainment's
Warcraft franchise are heavily influenced by Lovecraft's works. For example, the Old Gods C'Thun and Yogg-Saron have names that
are very similar to Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth, respectively. The Evil Within 2 also has many references to Lovecraft's work, such as
the names Dagon and Cthulhu.

Lovecraft as a character in fiction

Aside from his thinly veiled appearance in Robert Bloch's "The Shambler from the Stars", Lovecraft continues to be used as a
character in supernatural fiction. An early version of Ray Bradbury's "The Exiles"[163] uses Lovecraft as a character, who makes a
brief, 600-word appearance eating ice cream in front of a fire and complaining about how cold he is. Lovecraft and some associates
are included at length in Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975). Lovecraft makes an appearance as
a rotting corpse in The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont, a novel with fictionalized versions of a number of period
writers. John Shirley's story When Death Wakes Me To Myself offers a tale of a therapy patient slowly remembering a former
incarnation when he was H.P. Lovecraft.

Other notable works with Lovecraft as a character include Richard Lupoff's Lovecraft's Book (1985), Cast a Deadly Spell (1991),
H.P. Lovecraft's: Necronomicon (1993), Witch Hunt (1994), Out of Mind: The Stories of H. P. Lovecraft (1998), Stargate SG-1:
Roswell (2007), and Alan Moore's comic Providence (2015–17). Lovecraft also appears in the Season 6, Episode 21 episode "Let it
Bleed" of the TV show Supernatural. A satirical version of Lovecraft named "H. P. Hatecraft" appeared as a recurring character on
the Cartoon Network television series Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. A character based on Lovecraft also appears in the visual
novel Shikkoku no Sharnoth: What a Beautiful Tomorrow, under the name "Howard Phillips" (or "Mr. Howard" to most of the main
characters).. Another character based on Lovecraft appears in Afterlife with Archie.[164] He appears as a minor character in Brian
Clevinger's comic book series Atomic Robo, as an acquaintance and fellow-scientist of Nikola Tesla, having been driven insane by
his involvement in the Tunguska Event which exposed him to the hidden horrors of the wider universe. He is eventually killed when
his body becomes host to an extradimensional being infecting the timestream.. Lovecraft is a central plot element, as well as a
character in Paul La Farge's 2017 novel, The Night Ocean.[165] In the Japanese manga and anime Bungo Stray Dogs there is a
character known as Howard Phillips Lovecraft who, like other characters in the series, is named after great literates. Even his power,
“The Great Old Ones” pays homage to his classic book, The Call of Cthulhu, which grants him the ability of transforming himself
into an octopus like monster resembling Cthulhu.

The short story "The Invention of H. P. Lovecraft" by S. K. Azoulay suggests that Lovecraft was a fictional creation invented by
Jorge Luis Borges.[166]

Editions and collections of Lovecraft's work

For most of the 20th century, the definitive editions (specifically At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels, Dagon and Other
Macabre Tales, The Dunwich Horror and Others, and The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions) of his prose fiction were
published by Arkham House, a publisher originally started with the intent of publishing the work of Lovecraft, but which has since
published a considerable amount of other literature as well. Penguin Classics has at present issued three volumes of Lovecraft's
works: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories, The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories, and most recently The
Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories. They collect the standard texts as edited by S. T. Joshi, most of which were
available in the Arkham House editions, with the exception of the restored text of "The Shadow Out of Time" from The Dreams in
the Witch House, which had been previously released by small-press publisherHippocampus Press. In 2005 the prestigiousLibrary of
America canonized Lovecraft with a volume of his stories edited by Peter Straub, and Random House's Modern Library line have
issued the "definitive edition" of Lovecraft'sAt the Mountains of Madness(also including "Supernatural Horror in Literature").

Lovecraft's poetry is collected in The Ancient Track: The Complete Poetical Works of H. P. Lovecraft (Night Shade Books, 2001),
while much of his juvenilia, various essays on philosophical, political and literary topics, antiquarian travelogues, and other things,
can be found in Miscellaneous Writings (Arkham House, 1989). Lovecraft's essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature", first published
in 1927, is a historical survey of horror literature available with endnotes as
The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature.

Letters
Although Lovecraft is known mostly for his works of weird fiction, the bulk of his writing consists of voluminous letters about a
variety of topics, from weird fiction and art criticism to politics and history. Lovecraft's biographer L. Sprague de Camp estimates
that Lovecraft wrote 100,000 letters in his lifetime, a fifth of which are believed to survive.

He sometimes dated his letters 200 years before the current date, which would have put the writing back in US colonial times, before
the American Revolution (a war that offended his Anglophilia). He explained that he thought that the 18th and 20th centuries were
the "best", the former being a period of noble grace, and the latter a century of science.

Lovecraft was not an active letter-writer in youth. In 1931 he admitted: "In youth I scarcely did any letter-writing — thanking
anybody for a present was so much of an ordeal that I would rather have written a two hundred fifty-line pastoral or a twenty-page
treatise on the rings of Saturn." (SL 3.369–70). The initial interest in letters stemmed from his correspondence with his cousin
Phillips Gamwell but even more important was his involvement in the amateur journalism movement, which was initially responsible
for the enormous number of letters Lovecraft produced.

Despite his light letter-writing in youth, in later life his correspondence was so voluminous that it has been estimated that he may
have written around 30,000 letters to various correspondents, a figure which places him second only to Voltaire as an epistolarian.
Lovecraft's later correspondence is primarily to fellow weird fiction writers, rather than to the amateur journalist friends of his earlier
years.

Lovecraft clearly states that his contact to numerous different people through letter-writing was one of the main factors in broadening
his view of the world: "I found myself opened up to dozens of points of view which would otherwise never have occurred to me. My
understanding and sympathies were enlarged, and many of my social, political, and economic views were modified as a consequence
of increased knowledge." (SL 4.389).
Today there are five publishing houses that have released letters from Lovecraft, most prominently Arkham House with its five-
volume edition Selected Letters (these volumes severely abridge the letters they contain). Other publishers are Hippocampus Press
(Letters to Alfred Galpin et al.), Night Shade Books (Mysteries of Time and Spirit: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Donald
Wandrei et al..), Necronomicon Press (Letters to Samuel Loveman and Vincent Starrett et al.), and University of Tampa Press (O
Fortunate Floridian: H. P. Lovecraft's Letters to R. H. Barlow). S.T. Joshi is supervising an ongoing series of volumes collecting
Lovecraft's unabridged letters to particular correspondents.

Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters was published in 2000, in which Lovecraft's letters are arranged according to
themes, such as adolescence and travel.

Copyright
Despite several claims to the contrary, there is currently no evidence that any company or individual owns the copyright to any of
[167][168][169]
Lovecraft's work, and it is generally accepted that it has passed into the public domain.

There has been controversy over the copyright status of many of Lovecraft's works, especially his later works. Lovecraft had
specified that the young R. H. Barlow would serve as executor of his literary estate,[170] but these instructions had not been
incorporated into his will. Nevertheless his surviving aunt carried out his expressed wishes, and Barlow was given charge of the
massive and complex literary estate upon Lovecraft's death.

Barlow deposited the bulk of the papers, including the voluminous correspondence, with the John Hay Library, and attempted to
organize and maintain Lovecraft's other writing. August Derleth, an older and more established writer than Barlow, vied for control
of the literary estate. One result of these conflicts was the legal confusion over who owned what copyrights.

All works published before 1923 are public domain in the US.[171] With respect to works published later, ownership of the
copyrights is disputed. Before the United States Copyright Act of 1976, copyright lasted for 28 years from publication and a work
that did not have its copyright renewed passed into the public domain. The Copyright Act of 1976 retroactively extended this renewal
period for all works to a period of 47 years[172] and the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 added another 20 years
to that, for a total of 95 years from publication. But everything turned on the renewal or expiration of copyright at the end of the first
28-year term.

The European Union Copyright Duration Directive of 1993 extended the copyrights to 70 years after the author's death. All of
Lovecraft's works published during his lifetime became public domain in all 27 European Union countries on January 1, 2008. In
those Berne Convention countries that have implemented only the minimum copyright period, copyright expires 50 years after the
author's death.

Lovecraft protégés and part owners of Arkham House, August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, often claimed copyrights over
Lovecraft's works. On October 9, 1947, Derleth purchased all rights toWeird Tales. However, since April 1926 at the latest, Lovecraft
had reserved to himself all second printing rights to stories published in Weird Tales. Weird Tales may only have owned the rights to
at most six of Lovecraft's tales. Again, even if Derleth did obtain the copyrights to Lovecraft's tales, there is no evidence that the
copyrights were renewed.[173] Following Derleth's death in 1971, his attorney proclaimed that all of Lovecraft's literary material was
[174]
part of the Derleth estate and that it would be "protected to the fullest extent possible."

S. T. Joshi concludes in his biography of Lovecraft that Derleth's claims are "almost certainly fictitious" and that most of Lovecraft's
works published in the amateur press are most likely now in the public domain. The copyright for Lovecraft's works would have been
inherited by the only surviving heir named in his 1912 will, his aunt Annie Gamwell. When Gamwell died in 1941, the copyrights
passed to her remaining descendants, Ethel Phillips Morrish and Edna Lewis, who then signed a document, sometimes referred to as
the Morrish-Lewis gift, permitting Arkham House to republish Lovecraft's works while retaining the copyrights for themselves.
Searches of the Library of Congress have failed to find any evidence that these copyrights were renewed after the 28-year period,
making it likely that these works are now in the public domain.
Chaosium, publishers of the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, have a trademark on the phrase "The Call of Cthulhu" for use in
game products. TSR, Inc., original publisher of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, included a section on the
Cthulhu Mythos in one of the game's earlier supplements, Deities & Demigods[175] (originally published in 1980 and later renamed
[176]
to "Legends & Lore"). TSR later agreed to remove this section at Chaosium's request.

In 2009, Lovecraft Holdings, LLC, a company based out of Providence, filed trademark claims for clothing graphics of Lovecraft's
name and silhouette.[177]

Regardless of the legal disagreements surrounding Lovecraft's works, Lovecraft himself was extremely generous with his own works
and encouraged others to borrow ideas from his stories and build on them, particularly with regard to his Cthulhu Mythos. He
encouraged other writers to reference his creations, such as the Necronomicon, Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth. After his death, many
writers have contributed stories and enriched the shared mythology of the Cthulhu Mythos, as well as making numerous references to
his work.

World Fantasy Award and H. P. Lovecraft controversy

In 1984, writer Donald Wandrei caused some controversy after he was offered a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement but
refused to accept it because the award was a bust of H. P. Lovecraft that he felt looked more like a caricature of Lovecraft than an
actual representation.[178][179]

In August 2014, author Daniel José Older started a petition to change the World Fantasy Award statuette from a bust of Lovecraft to
one of African-American author Octavia Butler.[180] Kevin J. Maroney, editor of The New York Review of Science Fiction, also
supported the call for the WFA to be changed from Lovecraft's face, suggesting it be replaced with a symbol representing the fantasy
genre. Maroney argued this should be done "not out of disrespect for Lovecraft as a writer or as a central figure in fantasy, but as a
courtesy to generations of writers whom the WFA hopes to honor."[181] In response to the campaign, the board of the World Fantasy
Awards announced in September 2014 that it was "in discussion" about the future of the award statuette,[180] and in November 2015
. Lovecraft.[182]
it was announced that the World Fantasy Award trophy would no longer be modeled on H. P

Locations featured in Lovecraft stories

Lovecraft drew extensively from his native New England for settings in his fiction. Numerous real historical locations are mentioned,
and several fictional New England locations make frequent appearances.

Bibliography

Documentary biographies and movies portrayals

Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom(2016 Canadian animated fictional movie inspired by the writings of H..P
Lovecraft).
Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown(2008).
Weird Tales: The Strange Life of H. P. Lovecraft (2006).[183]
La Herencia Valdemar II: La Sombra Prohibida (2010 Spanish movie inspired by Lovecraft where he was also
portrayed in a small role)[184]

Notes

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4. Joshi 2013, p. 8.
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6. Joshi 2013, p. 22.
7. Joshi 2013, p. 24.
8. de Camp 1975, p. 16.
9. de Camp 1975, p. 2.
10. Joshi 2013, p. 28.
11. Joshi 2013, p. 33.
12. Joshi 2013, p. 36.
13. Joshi 2013, p. 34.
14. Joshi 2013, p. 38.
15. Joshi 2013, p. 42.
16. Joshi 2013, p. 60.
17. Joshi 2013, p. 84.
18. Joshi 2013, p. 90.
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25. Joshi 2013, p. 126.
26. de Camp 1975, p. 27.
27. Joshi 2013, p. 127.
28. Joshi 2013, p. 128.
29. de Camp 1975, p. 66.
30. Poole 2016, p. 86.
31. de Camp 1975, p. 64.
32. Poole 2016, p. 82.
33. Poole 2016, p. 84.
34. Poole 2016, p. 85.
35. Joshi 2013, p. 129.
36. Joshi 2013, p. 137.
37. Joshi 2013, p. 138.
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"H. P. Lovecraft's Afterlife" by John J. Miller of the Wall Street Journal
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Joshi, S. T.; Schultz, David E. (2001).An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group.
Joshi, S. T. (2013). I am Providence. New York: Hippocampus Press. ISBN 978-1-61498-053-7.
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Montague, Charlotte (2015). H. P. Lovecraft. New York: Chartwell Books. ISBN 978-0-7858-3269-0.

Further reading
Anderson, James Arthur. Out of the Shadows: A Structuralist Approach to Understanding the Fiction of H.. P
Lovecraft (ISBN 978-0-8095-3002-1) A close reading of Lovecraft's fiction. The Milford Series, Popular W
riters of
Today, Vol. 75; Wildside Press, 2011.
Burleson, Donald R. Lovecraft: Disturbing the Universe(ISBN 0-8131-1728-3) This book is the only volume to date
analyzing Lovecraft's literature from a deconstructionist standpoint. University Press of Kentucky
, November 1990.
Carter, Lin. Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos(ISBN 0-586-04166-4), is a survey of Lovecraft's work
(along with that of other members of the Lovecraft Circle) with considerable information on his life.
De Camp, L. Sprague Lovecraft: A Biography(ISBN 0-345-25115-6) The first full-length biography, published in
1975, now out of print. It reflected the state of scholarship at the time but is now completely superseded by S.T
.
Joshi's biography I Am Providence.
Eddy, Muriel and C. M. Eddy, Jr. The Gentleman From Angell Street: Memories of H. .PLovecraft (ISBN 978-0-
9701699-1-4), is a collection of personal remembrances and anecdotes from two of Lovecraft's closest friends in
Providence. The Eddys were fellow writers, and Mr. Eddy was a frequent contributor toWeird Tales.
Hill, Gary. The Strange Sound of Cthulhu: Music Inspired by the Writings of H. .PLovecraft (ISBN 978-1-84728-776-
2).
Joshi, S. T. H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (ISBN 0-940884-88-7) The most complete and authoritative biography of
Lovecraft, later abridged asA Dreamer & a Visionary: H. P. Lovecraft in His Time (ISBN 0-85323-946-0). An
unabridged reprint in two volumes of Joshi's biography , newly retitled I Am Providence, was published in 2010 by
Hippocampus Press.
Joshi S. T. The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos(Mythos Books, 2008) is the first full-length critical study since
Lin Carter's to examine the development of Lovecraft's Mythos and its outworking in the oeuvres of various modern
writers.
Joshi, S. T. "H. P. Lovecraft: Alone in Space,"chapter 3 in Emperors of Dreams: Some Notes on Weird Poetry by S.
T. Joshi (Sydney: P'rea Press, 2008:ISBN 978-0-9804625-3-1 (pbk) and ISBN 978-0-9804625-4-8 (hbk)), discusses
some of Lovecraft's weird poetry.
Long, Frank Belknap Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Nightside(Arkham House, 1975,ISBN 0-87054-
068-8) Presents a personal look at Lovecraft's life, combining reminiscence, biography and literary criticism. Long
was a friend and correspondent of Lovecraft, as well as a fellow fantasist who wrote a number of Lovecraft-
influenced Cthulhu Mythos stories (includingThe Hounds of Tindalos).
An English translation ofMichel Houellebecq's H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life(ISBN 1-932416-18-8)
was published by Believer Books in 2005.
Ludueña, Fabián, H.P. Lovecraft. The Disjunction in Being(translation and epilogue by Alejandro de Acosta), New
York, Schism, 2015 (ISBN 978-1-5058-6600-1). A study of Lovecraft's conceptions about philosophy and literature.
Other significant Lovecraft-related works areAn H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopediaby Joshi and David S. Schulz;
Lovecraft's Library: A Catalogue(a meticulous listing of many of the books in Lovecraft's now scattered library), by
Joshi; Lovecraft at Last, an account by Willis Conover of his teenage correspondence with Lovecraft; Joshi'sA
Subtler Magick: The Writings and Philosophy of H. .PLovecraft.
 Lovecraft's prose fiction being published as corrected texts were released by Arkham House in the 1980s, and many
other collections of his stories have appeared, including Ballantine Books editions and three Del Rey editions. The
three collections published by Penguin,The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories, The Thing on the Doorstep and
Other Weird Stories, and The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories, incorporate the modifications
made in the corrected texts as well as the annotations provided by Joshi.
Lovecraft's ghost-written works are compiled inThe Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions
, edited again by
Joshi.
Some of Lovecraft's writings are annotated withfootnotes or endnotes. In addition to the Penguin editions mentioned
above and The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature , Joshi has produced The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft as
well as More Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, both of which are footnoted extensively
.
An Epicure in the Terrible (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1991), edited by David E. Schultz and S.. TJoshi is
an anthology of 13 essays on Lovecraft (excluding Joshi's lengthy introduction) on the centennial of Lovecraft's birth.
The essays are arranged into 3 sections; Biographical, Thematic Studies and Comparative and Genre Studies. The
authors include S. T. Joshi, Kenneth W. Faig, Jr, Jason C. Eckhardt, Will Murray, Donald R. Burleson, Peter Cannon,
Stefan Dziemianowicz, Steven J. Mariconda, David E. Schultz, Robert H. W augh, Robert M. Price, R. Boerem,
Norman R. Gatford and Barton Levi St. Armand.
The Intersection of Fantasy and Native America: From H. .PLovecraft to Leslie Marmon Silkoedited by Amy H.
Sturgis and David D. Oberhelman (Mythopoeic Press, 2009:ISBN 978-1-887726-12-2).

External links
Howard P. Lovecraft Collection in the Special Collections at theJohn Hay Library (Brown University)
The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society
Works by H. P. Lovecraft at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about H. P. Lovecraft at Internet Archive
Works by H. P. Lovecraft at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
H. P. Lovecraft at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
H. P. Lovecraft on IMDb
H. P. Lovecraft at Library of Congress Authorities, with 113 catalog records

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